dignity. “You needn’t make a scene,” she said under her breath. “Nothing untoward was going on.”
“I’ll be the judge of that.” Fred caught hold of her arm and hauled her the rest of the way to his side.
She sucked in a sharp breath at his rough handling.
And St. Clare saw red.
He strode forward. “Let go of her.”
“Don’t!” Maggie turned to block his path. “You’ll only make things worse.”
St. Clare came to an unwilling halt. A smoldering rage built within him, long banked but never extinguished. It wouldn’t have taken much more provocation for him to pitch Fred straight over the rail of the terrace. “Let go of her,” he said again. The fingers of his right hand curled into a fist. His knuckles cracked. “I dislike repeating myself.”
Fred relinquished Maggie’s arm. “Go back inside, Margaret.”
“She’s not yours to command,” St. Clare said.
“And there you’re wrong.” Fred’s eyes glinted with smug satisfaction. “I stand as her guardian. The man who holds power over her home—her very existence. She’ll do as I say if she knows what’s good for her.”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” Maggie said.
“You have an advantage on me there,” St. Clare said. “I’ve never had to blackmail a lady to my side. They generally come willingly.”
Maggie shot St. Clare a warning look. Don’t provoke him.
It was too late. Fred was already puffing himself up like an enraged toad. “Blackmail?”
“You heard me.”
“You dare to insult my honor?”
“I’d be happy to offer you satisfaction,” St. Clare said.
“You, a man who no one has ever seen before? Who may be an imposter for all we know?”
“Or to demand satisfaction of my own.” St. Clare took another step forward. “If you keep talking.”
“Enough.” A note of exasperation sounded in Maggie’s voice. “The two of you are not going to engage in another duel.”
“I say, is everything all right out here?” Lionel Beresford appeared behind Fred in the doorway. He wore an expression of vague surprise. As if he’d stumbled upon the scene purely by chance.
St. Clare brought his anger under ruthless control. It wasn’t easy. His heart was still pumping heavily, his muscles bunched with tension. The realization of what he’d almost done—what he’d very nearly put at risk—ricocheted through his consciousness like a rifle shot.
Good lord.
What had he been thinking? Another second and he’d have throttled Fred in plain view of Maggie, the Parkhurst servants, and Lionel Beresford, too.
The knowledge shook St. Clare to his core. He’d lost his temper. He never lost his temper.
What in blazes was wrong with him?
“A minor disagreement,” he said.
Fred regarded St. Clare with all-too-familiar contempt. “There’s nothing minor about a man’s honor. A gentleman would know that.”
“Enough.” Maggie placed a staying hand on Fred’s sleeve. “I mean it. I’m bored to tears with all this bluster. You will oblige me by escorting me down to supper.”
“Have no fear,” Fred replied tersely. “I’ll look after you.” Tucking her hand into his arm—an unmistakably proprietary gesture—he cast a malevolent look at St. Clare. “You and I will meet again.”
“Undoubtedly.” St. Clare watched them depart through the terrace doors. Maggie was saying something to Fred, her voice too soft to be heard. St. Clare made no attempt to discern her words. He walked to the rail of the terrace, conscious of Lionel following behind him.
“An old enemy of yours?” Lionel asked.
St. Clare leaned back against the railing, his arms folded. “What do you think?”
“What I think, Cousin, is that you’re not the man you seem.”
“And you are?”
Lionel removed his enameled snuffbox from an inner pocket of his coat. He flicked open the lid. “The difference being that I can produce evidence of the legitimacy of my birth. While you”—he took a pinch of snuff—“cannot.”
The torches that flanked the terrace flickered and snapped in the darkness. St. Clare’s anger flickered, too. This time he managed to contain it. “Is my grandfather’s word not enough for you?”
“No,” Lionel answered. “I’m afraid it isn’t.”
And there it was. The unvarnished truth of the matter.
St. Clare had suspected as much, but he hadn’t anticipated his cousin would admit it quite so plainly—or quite so offensively. “I should call you out for that.”
“You should,” Lionel agreed.
“I might, if I was confident you knew how to hold a pistol straight. As it stands, I may as well be calling out a child. And I don’t engage with children in affairs of honor, offensive as they may be.”
“Your father had no such scruples.”
St. Clare drew himself up to his full height. For a moment, he didn’t trust himself